Me:Night, Champ.
I open my calendar app on my phone and check the dates. Only a month until I see him again.
Chapter 26
Nineteen years old
Sam
“Thanks for collecting me,” Kath says as we finish wrestling her suitcase into the boot. “I know you’re busy, and I know you don’t love driving.”
“I’ll always collect you,” I say, before I can stop myself.
She walks automatically towards the driver’s side and then freezes, blinking at the steering wheel. “Oh. Right. Of course.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Shut up,” she mutters, circling round to the passenger side. “My brain’s still in Heathrow.”
She gasps as I pull out of the airport.
“You’re too close to that line.”
“I’m not.”
“You definitely are.”
“Kath.”
She exhales dramatically and slumps back into the seat. “I hate not being in control of the pedals.”
I laugh despite myself.
After another twenty minutes of Kath instinctively bracing every time I indicate, we pull into the car park outside my dorm. The thing is, she’snot entirely wrong. It’s been a year since I finally passed my test, but I still drive like I’m sitting the exam every single time. Even in AJ’s beast of a car, which feels like it could plough through a brick wall without so much as a scratch, I’m gripping the steering wheel like it might try to bolt.
Maybe it’s the wholedriving on the other side of the roadthing that still throws me. Or maybe it’s just that I operate at a low-key anxious hum as my baseline. Like an iPhone on 2% battery—technically functioning, but living in constant fear.
“Ugh, you were right; this place is boiling,” she says as we get out of the car.
I let us into the building and we climb the flight of stairs to my floor.
“It’s not even that bad, Kath. It’s only April.”
“OK, Mr ‘I’ve been in Florida for nearly a billion years and that makes me an expert’. Some of us still need tepid temperatures and SPF 1000.”
“It hasn’t been a billion years, it’s been eight months,” I grumble as we make it to my room.
Sometimes it feels a lot longer than eight months.
The moment we get into the room Kath collapses onto my bed, rubbing her eyes.
“Sorry,” she mumbles. “My flight was at an awful hour in the morning. Cheapest one I could find for a reason. I’ve been up since 3 a.m. It almost reminds me of those swimming morning hours again.”
“We can have an early night,” I offer, and she gives me a grateful look.
“I promise I’ll be more fun tomorrow.”
I won’t tell her this in case it makes things awkward, but I always find Kath fun. Even when we just sit in silence, she’s still the person I would choose to spend my time with.
